FanPost

Has Steve Nash Ever Done More With Less?

Previously...

The SUN had gone out. With only a few dying embers at its heart, the SUN was a darkened ball spiraling downward, thick black smoke belching and spewing forth from opposite points along its equator. From a distance, as the SUN spun in toward the Pacific, the two plumes could be seen entwining like the arms of a double helix, corkscrewing in unison as the orb twisted and plunged toward a dark and watery extinction.

Captain Steve Nash, along with his cohorts from the Photonic Heliocentric Operations Energy Network, Inc: X-division, hurried through the gloom within the bedimmed interior of the SUN, rushing along the echoing catwalks as dozens of alarms blared the final signal that all would soon be lost, that the SUN was doomed. One last rescue had to be attempted, to re-ignite the SUN before it would crash into the bottom of the Pacific, perhaps for ever.

As Capt. Nash hustled toward the deep interior, he glanced at his teammates behind him. Gone was Sun Tzu, the exploding strong man who had helped the SUN reach its zenith as it had arced over the sky in previous years. On this day, there were no imposing physical specimen amongst the team that clambered down the last stairwell to the heart of the SUN.

But each member of this ragtag crew, thrown together on the cheap from the far corners of the earth below, knew his place and knew that it all begins with the Captain. Nash flung open the door to the central chamber that contained the fusion furnace and stared hard at the dying embers within its core. Far brighter lights across the country below had dimmed all hope of the SUN rising. Even some of those who dwelt on the very bright side of the SUN itself felt it was time to dismantle the stellar components, hoping to begin the billion year rebuilding process as swiftly as possible.

Capt. Nash shook the hair from his eyes. Any hope had to start from him. "The SUN may fall and drown amidst all the naysayers below. I see in your eyes the same fear that would take the heart of me! A day may come when the courage of men fails, when we forsake our friends and break all bonds of fellowship.

"BUT IT IS NOT THIS DAY! An hour of wolves and heat and thunder comes crashing down upon us! But it is not this day! This day we fight! By all that you hold dear on yonder good Earth, I bid you stand! Men of the West! This day we press on! I am not going anywhere else! No one thinks we can pull this off. And management hasn't exactly given us the greatest tools. But I know a great deal of chemistry and cohesiveness. If each one of you but follow me, the SUN will once more rise gloriously!"

With a hearty roar, and much high-fiving of the palms, the crew lifted its Captain upon their shoulders so that he might peer into viewplate that looked down onto the central well of the fusion reactor. One, lone photon of hope remained. "Lift me but a hair more," cried the undaunted Captain. And with but the glint of his smile, he deflected the faint particle back into the very heart of the reactor, splitting the defensive shields in twain as the tiny piece dropped perfectly into its goal.

And the sound of the re-ignition of the stellar materials was thus: "bamf." With the inrush of each breath, the center of the fusion furnace began to glow brighter. The team kept concentrating on sending each stray quantum particle back into the reaction, rebounding, as it were, each photon back within for increased success and limiting the number of them that turned over and ebbed away. Mighty fell the Hammer that day as it smote any stray sparks and sent them back into the hole. Any duds, any strays that were weak or ineffective, were hustled back into place. Brighter rose the glow, from a dull brown, to a redd hot hue, intensifying to a white hot blast that fryed the retinas of onlookers on the shore below.

Slowly, ponderously, but gaining momentum, the SUN turned just as the dark waves of oblivion were lapping at its flanks. Higher and higher she rose, until the day brightened, til hearts were warmed, tel fair skies were cited once again. As if hard on the heels of a rocket, the SUN shot skyward as if on a destined date with thunder!

And the Bright Side of the Sun grew brighter as well, as the dark whorls on her surface were soon burned off all together.

And all because hope had just been lifted a hair more.

To be continued...